Sports ramblings…with a Yankees bias!

Thus Endeth The Streak…

He gave up two home runs and a total of four runs, and four walks over 5 1/3 innings…

…and got the win.Unfortunately, it was Scott Kazmir of the Los Angeles Angels and not Javier Vazquez of the New York Yankees.Javy had worse line (5 hits, 5 runs and 3 walks in 3 2/3 innings).This isn’t exactly what GM Brian Cashman was looking for when he traded for Vazquez in the off-season.Perhaps the Yankees should have stayed with a ‘been there, done that’ approach and left Vazquez in Atlanta.It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know who’ll get the biggest boos when the team returns to Yankee Stadium.Javy is now 1-3 for the season, with an ERA of 9.00, after today’s 8-4 loss to the Los Angeles Angels.

Jacob de Golish/Getty Images

The loss also ended the Yankees streak of series wins to start the season.Tied with the 1926 Yankees for the best start to the season with series wins, the 2010 missed a chance to take the record for themselves.The Angels took two of three, also winning Friday night’s game.The only Yankees win was Saturday’s 7-1 win behind a terrific performance by Andy Pettitte.

If Vazquez has competition for boos at home, it will come from reliever Damaso Marte.The game was still close (5-4) with Marte on the mound today.With Yankee killer Kendry Morales at the plate, manager Joe Girardi thought about lifting Marte.He left the dugout but changed his mind on the way to the mound and turned around.Morales subsequently pounded a three-run homer to give the Angels their margin of victory.

If I can take away any positives from today’s game, it was that Angels DH Hideki Matsui did not collect his 1,000th career hit against his former team.

Andrew Gombert/EPA

I am sure that somewhere far, far away, someone is enjoying the Yankees loss on her birthday…

Happy Birthday to my friend, Julia!By the way, how did the Celtics and Red Sox do for you today?;)Sports aside, I hope it was a great day for you!

I felt Friday night’s collision at home between Mark Teixeira and Angels catcher Bobby Wilson was clean albeit quite unfortunate.It left Wilson with an ankle injury and a concussion.Baseball can be a violent game and Teixeira was focused on scoring.I know that there is probably no one who feels worse about what happened than Teixeira.Well, perhaps Wilson himself. Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery by Bobby Wilson!

Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

Monday the Yankees will head to Washington to meet with President Obama at the White House.Then, it’s off to Baltimore for a three-game set in Oriole Park at Camden Yards.At 12-6, the Yankees are in second place, 1 ½ games behind the Tampa Bay Rays….but 4 ½ games ahead of the fourth place Boston Red Sox.

As a fan of the Minnesota Vikings, I was a bit underwhelmed with this year’s draft.With the 30th pick in the first round, I thought the Vikings were in great shape to draft Notre Dame QB Jimmy Clausen, but they opted to trade down with the Detroit Lions.With the pick, the Lions were able to grab RB Jahvid Best who will definitely help improve Detroit’s running game.In Detroit’s slot (second pick of the second round), the Vikings again passed on Clausen and went with Virginia cornerback Chris Cook.Later in the second round, the Vikings traded up with the Houston Texans and drafted Stanford RB Toby Gerhart.I can’t dispute the Vikings needed secondary help, and after losing RB Chester Taylor through free agency to the Chicago Bears, the Vikings needed a backup for Adrian Peterson.But…

Tom Olmscheid/AP

I personally thought this would be a great year for the Vikings to draft a “Quarterback of the Future”.Assuming that Brett Favre returns for at least one more year, he would have been the perfect mentor for a young QB.The Vikings did draft a QB in the sixth round (Joe Webb from UAB), but he will most likely transition to Wide Receiver in the NFL (assuming he makes it, of course). The Vikings also signed undrafted free agent QB R.J. Archer of William & Mary but he’s nothing more than training camp fodder.I guess I have something to look forward to in next year’s NFL Draft…

Thank you for the birthday wishes! And while the pomegranate martinis were delicious I did not find myself in need of any “buckets!” ;-) Yes – the Red Sox & Celtics had a tough Sunday. I fully did not expect the C’s to win – that the Heat would lose both games at home was unthinkable – but the Red Sox lose was unacceptable. What the bullpen and hitters have against Tim Wakefield is beyond me. But my day was not a total lose – because the Yankee lose!! I didn’t see the collision between Tex & Wilson – I know there was some question as to whether Wilson was on homeplate or not – I just hope he will be okay. Concussions can be scary things.

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